


Flying With Flaws

by Whispering_Sumire



Series: TW Bingo♘ [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adorable, Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, BAMF Chris Argent, BAMF Peter, BAMF Stiles, Companionable Snark, Creature Stiles, Cuddling & Snuggling, Everybody Lives, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Good Peter, Happy Ending, Heartfelt Conversations, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Kid Fic, Kissing, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Polyamory, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 08:29:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14807862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: "Youknowmyson?" She asks, very disbelieving, because her son, as far as she knows, is trying very, very hard, fighting with his wife about it every goddamned day, toget outof the life, for his daughter's sake. And this boy looks about asinthe life as one could possibly get. But then, the strangest thing happens, Allison comes up behind her asking:"Gramma? Who i'sit?"And the boy's facemelts, "Awwww," he coos, "Ally! You're just the cutest little thing, aren't you!"Allison blushes brightly, "Umm, hi?""Hello, there. My name is Stiles, I know your daddy, he talks about youallthe time, did you know that? He loves you the bestest out of everyone in the whole world! And why wouldn't he? Look at you, those pinchable cheeks!" And all of her doubt flies out the window. Allison is one of the Argents better-kept secrets, because Chris has beenadamantabout that, if the boy knows of her Chris must trust him immensely.[Or: The one where Chris, Stiles, and Peter go back in time and fuck shit up, and scoop up a little Allison along the way.]





	Flying With Flaws

**Author's Note:**

> I had a reaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy hard time with this one, because the BINGO Prompt was **danger** , and all I kept thinking was, but they're _always_ in danger? How the heck do I utilize _that_ to make a story for them? Then, I realized, like, two minutes after I wrote this, because a friend told me, that I could have done like, a Gangster AU or something, but fuqqqqq it, lol- I did what I could with it, and I hope you enjoy it! Soulkisses and soulhugs!
> 
> Also, all the handwavey on time-magic, and a bit of handwavey on Chris and general Argent-ness.

It was loss that tore them apart.

There were all the losses before they even came together, the fire, disease, they were shriveled and terrorized and murdering, lashing out to cause even _more_ loss. Then it was the Alphas, killing Erica, killing Boyd, the Darach and all of her useless _sacrifices_.

Their sacrifice, awakening an old and terrifying demon, one that cut them _all_ down, but only really killed one.

Derek, after, made his vacation with Cora permanent, he wasn't an Alpha anymore, and they didn't _need_ him, not really. Isaac, broken, hollow, lost, went with him, unable to bear the town, the memories, the _ache_.

Lydia's parents decided that a boarding school for girls in _France_ would be better than whatever the _fuck_ was going on in Beacon Hills. Thank fuck she and Stiles were able to find a stable Pack there that was willing to accept and protect the Banshee with open arms.

Scott couldn't bring himself to be with Kira, not after- _after_. And every time he saw the visage of his best friend, he physically cringed away, then the guilt that came with that visceral reaction, one he couldn't help or stop, it killed him. Not literally. And that's it, isn't it, it's that right there that tells you just how fucked up their lives are.

 _Not literally_.

Because it could be literal, in every sense, is too literal, with too many others.

The Alpha, the True Alpha, couldn't bring himself to give anyone the Bite, couldn't even bring himself to _ask_. Kira, not having any reason to stay, and being _awake_ to the fox within her, now, went away with her parents, went to go find people- _things_ , to teach her, her own Hogwarts, Mr. Miyagi, or whatever.

Stiles' dad didn't hide himself in the bottle, like Stiles thought he might, but he couldn't stomach Stiles much, either, after having to scrub footage of someone who looked _exactly_ like Stiles setting bombs, _killing_ , with a fox-like grin painted across his face. Like Scott, he knows it wasn't actually Stiles, and he still _loves_ him.

It's the looking at him, the being anywhere _near_ him that he can no longer bring himself to do.

And Stiles understands, he gets it, he does, and so he leaves them. Numbness encroaches, everything he _should_ feel, sad, lonely, he guesses, is all static. His father and his brother move to the peripheral of his life and he feels _nothing_.

Suddenly, when he tries, when he pulls on the part of him that used to be _Nogitsune_ , or when the moon is a full, heavy, pregnant presence in the sky, wings as black as midnight sprout from his shoulders, talon-like claws creep over his fingernails, his teeth get sharp, his hair gets longer, his eyes flash lavender, and he wonders what he is.

But even curiosity is dulled in this state.

He thinks another version of him would've at least tried to _fly_ by now, but he doesn't actually see the point. He doesn't see the point in much of anything.

Although, sometimes, he sees the point in _pain_.

But that probably isn't very healthy.

He remembers his mother telling him that he never did well without _people_.

He remembers what the Pack-bonds felt like, even as a human, even though they weren't as _loud_ , instinctual, or solid. They still _felt_.

And he's so _tired_ of _nothing_.

Of _no one_.

* * *

Chris picks at the label around the glass, the street lights taunt him through the open windows, creep across the lifeless shadows he lives in like determined spiders, an infestation he could destroy with little effort.

But he doesn't want to close the blinds, the windows, lock the doors, he doesn't want _safety_. He wants _monsters_ , he wants something to come, to bring Death with it, because he can't do it himself, not when another part of him, a better part of him, the part that sounds so much like his little girl is still whispering:

_'Protect them.'_

The phone beside the mostly empty bottle he fiddles with remains silent, and he waits.

His guard is up, it's _always_ up, no one could get near him without his knowledge, without his perfectly crafted battle-ready hypervigilance alerting him. Or maybe he's too fucking drunk for that to be of any use, because when a familiar, weary voice bluntly says, "You look like shit." He has to admit he hadn't noticed them at all.

Pale, bony fingers enfold the neck of his bottle and slip it out of his loose hands, pretty, pouty, full pink lips wrap around the mouth of it, a long neck arches as his chin tips up, adam's apple bobbing as he swallows down the last dregs of whiskey.

"You're a minor," Chris says, mildly disgruntled, his voice a rough sandpapery-gravel thing, crackling from disuse and slurring from lack of sobriety.

"You're an alcoholic," Stiles returns, setting the bottle back in his hands, "judging by all of the emptied bottles laying around. And that isn't even the _good_ stuff." The boy bends down to pick up a different bottle from the steadily growing pile next to him and makes a face, "Neither is this. What did you do, Chris? Walk into a liquor store and buy everything indiscriminately?"

Chris doesn't answer, doesn't much feel like talking at all, but Stiles doesn't really seem to mind his silence.

"I mean, these are all really _shitty_ brands. Or do you just like the cheap stuff? Hey, I won't judge, my dad likes chocolate flavored _beer_. Where are your trash bags?" The boy moves around him, stumbling over glass bottles that clink together, stubbing his toe at least three times as he rummages through cupboards, but he doesn't bother turning on the light, which Chris is thankful for.

"Aha! Here we are, okie-dokie, time to put my terrible cleaning skills to good use. Hey, did you know, my dad actually _banned_ me from cleaning once? I forget _what_ I did- in fact, I'm pretty sure it was mostly _Scott_ who did it, but I took the blame 'cause I'm a good buddy like that."

Stiles continues chattering on, using up his trashbags, complaining once he gets to moldy pizza boxes and week old chinese food. Chris has no idea if the reprieve from silence is a good or bad thing, but it's... it's different. He crosses his arms on the table, leans his head on them as he slouches over, too exhausted to keep his eyes open any longer, the modulation of a deep, resounding voice lulling him.

He wonders why sleep comes easily _now_ , when it's been evading him so completely these past two god-awful months, but it does, and he's too grateful for it to overthink it.

* * *

He wakes up to Stiles shaking his shoulder, "-on, big guy, wake up. Your house is sparkly but you're as rank as a fuckin' outhouse, dude, you need to take a shower."

"Go away."

"I'd really rather not," the boy says, manhandling him until he's sitting upright, he groans when the motion causes his stiff back to creak uncomfortably. "Yeah, that's what you get for sleeping on a _chair_ , old man. You _stink_ , c'mon, up, up-"

"No. Fuck you. Fuck _off_ , Stiles, what are you even doing?"

"Whatever the hell I want. And, I swear to god Chris, if you don't get up and get into that shower, I will drag you there and wash you _myself_." Chris glares at the boy, who puts his fists on his hips and glares right the fuck back, "What? You think I can't take you? You're skinny and hungover and old, I have youth, self-defense classes, and _food_ on my side. Fucking _try me_."

He'd really rather not, and it's humiliating enough that the kid cleaned his whole fucking _house_. So with a gruff, grumbled, "Fine," he gets up, meanders his way to the bathroom, and ignores the hollered, "Thank you!"

* * *

Stiles... doesn't _leave_.

The weirdest thing about that is that it _isn't weird_. Stiles stays and he slots himself into Chris' life like a broken fucking puzzle piece. He doesn't leave during the day, like he probably should, but he'll leave in the late afternoon sometimes, come back with groceries he buys with the credit card he'd lifted off of Chris at some point. He cooks, and he reads every goddamn book in the apartment, finds out the Argents have a storage unit that basically serves as a fucking library and makes Chris drive him there at least twice a week.

He doesn't let Chris drink. He pours every bottle down the sink, and the one time Chris had had enough, gone down to a bar somewhere off of the interstate, Stiles had found him, broken his nose before he could even get a word in edgewise, and dragged him to an AA meeting at fucking gunpoint.

Everything Stiles says, he says like a _challenge_ , like a dare.

"Why the hell aren't you at school?"

"Why aren't you at _work_ , old man?"

"You sayin' you'll go to school if I go to work?"

A cock-sure smirk.

" _Deal._ "

Chris has always been a competitive person.

* * *

He encounters John a few days later when Stiles orders him to go get more coffee because he's on some research binge or another, and the man doesn't ask how his son is doing, why he hasn't come home, why he didn't go to school for however long, he just thanks Chris for taking care of him and goes his own way.

Chris doesn't know if he should be more offended on his own behalf or on Stiles', he also doesn't know what the man meant by that, because Chris hasn't been the one taking care of _anything_.

When he gets home, cheap instant coffee in hand, he asks, "Do you miss your dad?"

"My dad doesn't miss me," Stiles says absently, snatching the bag in his hand and rushing off to the kitchen with it.

"That wasn't what I asked."

"I know."

He's right, though, Chris thinks. John _doesn't_ miss him, Chris knows what _missing_ feels like, knows the lines it etches into your face and the hollow it cuts into your eyes, the way it kills you slower than any poison, because it isn't killing you at all, just making you _wish_. And in some ways, that's worse.

He sees it in his eyes, sees it mirrored in Stiles' the rare days when the boy doesn't have a mask of blank indifference built up all around him like a portable fucking panic room.

All he saw in John's eyes was guilty relief.

"If you left," Stiles suddenly whispers, like saying it any louder will break something, although _what_ , exactly, he doesn't know, "I'd miss you."

"I'd miss you, too," he replies with the kind of honesty he's shied away from with bitter alcohol and a burning throat and dry eyes, because he's never been able to cry, not really, not the way he should.

When Stiles looks at him, there's enough whiskey in those pretty irises to _drown_ him, and enough youth in those shy-smile bubble-gum pink lips that kissing them shouldn't be something he even _allows_ himself to think of.

* * *

Stiles _screams_ , he screams like his heart is being torn out of his chest, like he's filled with so much agony and terror that there's nowhere else for it to go but into that ear-splitting sound.

Chris is out of his bed and in Allison's old room before he even has time to think about the fact that he hasn't been able to stomach entering this place ever since she _died_. The boy writhes on the bed, sweating and arching and twisting the sheets in his trembling fists, shrieking, wailing.

"Stiles," Chris breathes, crossing the threshold, climbing into his dead daughter's bed and hauling him into his lap, shaking him, " _Stiles!_ "

"No, no, please. _Please_. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Stiles sobs, choking on gasps as he succumbs to the waking world, "I deserve- you should kill me, Chris," he shudders, wraps his arms around Chris' neck even as he says it, trembles and folds himself into the older man. "I should die, I deserve to die, I deserve _worse_. It's _my_ fault, _everyone_ thinks it's my fault, how do you- why do you-"

His voice is small, stilted and stuttered with hiccups, and Chris wonders as he rocks them, as he wraps his arms around the boy in turn, if he wasn't the only one who was waiting for monsters that night. But Stiles was braver than he, he went out in _search_ of the monster he thought would offer him an end.

"I'm not going to kill you, Stiles," he tells him quietly. "I can't live without you."

Not anymore, not after everything. He's _sure_ that this boy is the only reason he's even any approximation of alive.

"It's my fault," Stiles whimpers, pulling back to look at him with horrified, broken eyes, breath hitching. Chris swallows, cups tear-soaked cheeks in his hands, brings salty, soft, trembling lips to his own.

"It isn't," he says, licks the seam of the boy's lips, takes the sharp gasp as permission to wander, to taste a sleep-musk, candy-sweet tongue. "It wasn't. She died saving her friends."

Stiles' fingers thread through his hair, his other hand brushes down his arm, kneads the muscle as he moans, presses into Chris' mouth with his own tongue. He pulls away with a sniff, a heartbroken expression.

"She was saving her friends from _me_."

"From a _demon_ who was wearing your face."

Stiles sniffs again, pecks him on the lips, asks softly, "Why are we kissing?"

"We shouldn't be," Chris says, even as he kisses him again, and Stiles huffs, but they don't stop. He doesn't know why, but it feels _good_ , better than- better than things he can't think about right now, doesn't want to anymore, he just wants to dive deep, he wants to drown.

He bites a trail of marks down Stiles' jaw as the boy grinds against him, whimpers in pleasure, arches into his touch. His hand rubs circles into Stiles' back, follows the knobs of his spine to the elastic of his boxers, slips underneath it, finds the ring of muscle with his finger, circles it while Stiles groans into his shoulder, hips stuttering.

"Are you gonna fuck me, old man?" He asks in a thready voice as Chris' finger circles, breaches.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes, _fuck_ ," Stiles scratches his fingernails down Chris' back, underneath his shirt, and Chris hisses at the sensation. "Yes. But we don't have any lube."

"We should buy some," Chris murmurs against the shell of the boy's ear before he grazes his teeth, licks, bites, and Stiles whines high and needy in the back of his throat.

"Mmm-nfh, totally, buy _all_ the lube, just- fuck, Chris, touch me."

Chris smirks, finger sliding deftly into Stiles' hole, managing to go further inside, stretch, even without the lube. "I _am_ touching you."

Stiles whimpers, clenching around Chris' finger, hips rocking, biting his lip in frustration.

"Shh, baby, relax, I'll make you feel good. Easy, easy," Chris coaxes, runs a tongue along the boy's teeth, gnawing at his bottom lip, devours the small moan he makes, his finger delving further when Stiles finally relaxes enough. He pushes, crooks, searches, and when he finds it, that perfect sweet spot, Stiles throws his head back and cries out, a long, keen of unadulterated pleasure, and Chris smirks.

"You think you could come just from this?" He asks, and the hand curled around the back of his neck twitches, while the boy's other hand leaves his forearm to dive into his pants, squeezing his hardened cock painfully. He groans, and Stiles glares at him with flushed cheeks.

"That's what you get for teasing, old man," Stiles simpers, licking a stripe across his lips with a dangerous smile.

"What am I getting myself into with you?" He asks breathlessly as long, nimble fingers start stroking, tender, slow, _delicious_ friction, thumb circling his head, teasing precome from him. Stiles just grins in response, kisses him hard and filthy and gorgeous. Chris rubs his finger inside of him, massages through tightness to graze his prostate, Stiles' hole fluttering against him. Stiles leaves his lips to whimper and whine, fucking back on his finger, his hand convulsing almost in time with the rest of his body.

"Harder," Stiles moans, "god, fuck, _more_ , pull my hair, pinch my nipple, fucking _something_ , you asshole."

It should be odd, or sad, or _telling_ , that the first real laugh that bubbles up from his lungs and flutters gleefully from his lips since his little girl died happens while he's screwing one of her friends in her bed.

"This is fucked up."

" _We're_ fucked up," Stiles tells him, eyes sparkling with mischief and blown with lust, and then he grinds himself down _hard_ on Chris' finger, tugging on his dick with the same desperation, passion, yearning need. "But at least," he pants, nuzzling against the side of Chris' shoulder, "at least we're fucking fucked up _together_."

"Yeah," Chris breathes, free hand leaving Stiles' hip to palm him through his boxers, Stiles flinches, screams out in sudden, overwhelming pleasure, hole clenching around his finger as his body twitches, convulses while he comes. Chris holds him through it, the trembling aftershocks, until he finally goes loose in his lap, pliant and sweaty and fucked out. It only takes a few more pulls with Stiles' hand before he's coming too, spilling into the boy's hand as he sucks a dark mark into his shoulder.

They cling to each other like that for awhile, covered in come and sweat on Allison's bed, before Stiles, exhausted, finally slumps over and pulls Chris down with him.

They both sleep for over fourteen hours, dreamlessly, take a shower in the morning, Chris teaching Stiles how to give head, neither of them actually getting clean until the water is freezing. The next night, they both cuddle into each other in her bed, they don't talk or fuck or sleep, they just hold each other, feel the guilt and grief press in until it's suffocating, until they're pulling each other closer, tightening like they're each other's _lifeline_.

* * *

"Let's do something crazy," Stiles says, thudding a giant book down open on the table between them.

"How crazy?" Chris asks suspiciously as he sets his laptop aside.

Stiles snickers, "Dingo ate my baby crazy?"

" _Stiles_ ," Chris grumbles, inspecting the pages of the book even though he's already pretty sure it won't yield anything to him, the languages Stiles has learned just to understand the collection of books the Argents have is truly astounding, the boy is a genius, as far as he can tell. "Focus." Still annoying as hell though.

"I _am_ focused, old man, I am beyond focus, I am the epitome of it, I _embody_ focus, I-"

" _Really_ , because you coulda fooled me."

"Okay, okay. Um. Time travel."

Chris blinks at him.

"You're serious."

"Fuck yes, I am. All these books I've been reading- I didn't mean to, I wasn't even _looking_ for it, but I just. It comes up, you know? But then none of them were _right_ , so I didn't get my hopes up, didn't even really _think_ about it, not _hard_ or anything, just... But then I saw this one," Stiles taps his finger on an ancient, yellowed page, looks at Chris with a grim sort of determination, a ferocity he only ever has when they end up having to trek out to the Preserve because random bodies are piling up and they _both_ know it's a rogue Omega, or Pixies, or, on one very memorable occasion, Nymphs. Just like they both know no one is going to keep this town safe but them.

"And it all clicked, all of the other time travel spells, _including_ this one, have been shit, but they've all had a _tiny_ element of truth to them. And I've read them _all_."

Stiles waits for the realization to dawn, and when it does, it knocks him breathless.

"You're saying you could do this?"

"Yes."

"Without killing us, or, or, I don't know, destroying the world?"

" _Yes_."

Chris swallows past the lump in his throat.

"I could see my baby girl again?"

Stiles smiles at him like it aches, "Yeah, old man. We just need _one_ thing."

"What?" He asks, mouth dry, hands balled into fists.

"A werewolf."

* * *

Tracking Peter down is, expectedly, not easy at all.

Why Peter you ask? Because wherever Derek, Isaac, and Cora are, they're off the fucking grid. Scott is a no-go, for... _reasons_. And they don't _know_ anyone else, or, at least, everyone else they know is dead. (Jackson isn't even someone to _consider_ , thank you very much.)

But, Peter, after _everything_ he disappeared, not off the grid like Isaac and the other Hales, but damn near _close_.

The plus side to this is that while they have Danny hacking into fucking _Government databases_ , the no-questions-asked fee was totally worth it, Stiles and Chris have some time to prepare. Getting the ingredients and setting up the spell, Stiles practicing magic, both of them training together.

Chris wasn't nearly as surprised as Stiles thought he might be about the wings and the claws and the fangs, he'd figured having the Nogitsune as an inhabitant for so long, what they had to _do_ to the Nogitsune to _kill_ it, would change him. And besides, apparently, Stiles isn't as good at keeping it secret as he thought- flashes of fang, claws, purple eyes, random feathers. Chris had put the pieces together.

Stiles had twitched, reigned the animal back, and looked at Chris as dauntlessly as he could, considering.

"So... Even knowing that I'm not human, you won't kill me?"

Chris had sighed, gone to him, gathered him in his arms and kissed his temple.

"Considering some of the things I've done," he'd whispered, "knowing what I know now... I'm not even sure _I'm_ human, anymore. I'm not sure I ever was."

"You're not a monster, old man."

"Neither are you, baby. You know what you look like to me?"

Stiles- hands fisting in Chris' shirt, eyes clogging with stupid tears, throat closing up against the lump in it, half missing the _hollow_ Chris had managed to chase away just by _being there_ , because at least that meant he wouldn't have to _feel_ like this. Terrified and insecure and fucking needy- had nodded against his shoulder, trembling.

"Like a fucking angel."

And Stiles had choked on a sobbing laugh.

For the first time since he'd gained his wings, he'd wanted to fly.

Together, they learned how to better fight, Stiles learning what he could do in beta-shift, Chris learning alongside a shifter with ease, both of them mapping each other's strengths and making up for each other's weaknesses.

They planned, what to do when they got there, who it would be admissible to tell, _when_ to go back to.

"You and Peter would technically be the hosts of the spell, while I'd be the... Okay, better way to explain this? You two or the instrument, the- the cello. I'm the bow, and the _air_. Sound? That's _time_. I play against you, the string vibrates, time disrupts. Point is, you both go back to your former bodies, no matter how this plays out- I _don't_ , I'm the magical paradox that remains true."

"That made... about as much sense as it didn't, but it'll probably be easier that way, we'll be able to use mine, and, possibly even Peter's, connections when we get there, because we'll be, well, _us_."

"Okay, yeah, and that brings me to my other point, which I don't know if you're gonna like."

" _What_."

"I think we should go back to before the Hale fire. Actually, I think we should go back to before Gerard's meeting with Deucalion- And, I know, I know, okay? It means Allison will be younger, she won't be the same, and however you raise her she won't ever be _exactly_ the same as the daughter you lost, but-"

"Okay."

"- this isn't _resurrection_ this is time travel, and, she wouldn't be _exactly_ the same no matter what, she's a whole person, and people are in constant flux, and, I mean, lord knows she's changed a whole hell of a lot since I _met_ -"

" _Okay_ , Stiles. I said okay. I think you're right. Besides... I'm not the only one who lost someone, am I?"

"No... no, you're not. You know what this means though?"

"What?"

"Psycho-harpy teen-killer waifu, how you gonna deal?"

"I- I- I... _Psycho-harpy_?"

"Hey, I call it how I see it. Do I need to be prepared for an inevitable breakup here? Because I swear to god, I'm not gonna let you leave me for-"

"Stiles," a kiss, tentative, sure, and a smile, sun-soaked and beatific, " _I love you_. I'm not going to leave you, for anything, stop worrying."

Breathlessly, "I love you, too. Fuck. I love you so much it fucking hurts sometimes."

A grin, sparkling crystal-blue eyes full of mirth, "'S'at so?"

That conversation had ended in a very, very fun way for both of them, and, quietly, while the post-orgasm bliss was still wearing off, Chris had told him that who he was when he was in love with Victoria, that was the closest to _monster_ he'd ever been, and he wasn't about to go back to that. Stiles had pulled him close and told him that he was gentle, kinder, and more wonderful than he'd ever know, for all that he may have done in his father's name, he was a _good_ man.

Chris had given him a self-deprecating smile, and Stiles knew his words weren't so easily believed, just like Chris knew that telling Stiles it wasn't his fault, sometimes, even, telling Stiles that this was _real_ and that he was _awake_ , more often than not, had no effect.

But those were the things they told each other, the things they desperately needed to hear, and the things they tenaciously clung to on the worst days.

When Danny got back to them, it turned out that Peter Hale was living under an alias in some high-scale neighborhood in New York. So Stiles and Chris packed, and they waved the _present_ Beacon Hills goodbye, knowing they'd never see it again.

* * *

Peter walked into his apartment fully aware of the hummingbird heart and steadfast one of constancy beating steadily within. He had to admit, he was curious, not just because of the _pairing_ \- Stiles and Chris, he never would've imagined the two working together, on anything, even on _him_ \- but because neither was hiding their presence or being subtle at all.

It didn't seem like a trap.

Then, again, the best traps never do.

But he's honestly somewhat startled when he drops his keys into the decorative glass bowl on the counter and _smells_ them. They smell _mated_ , and intensely so. Whatever they have, it isn't just sex, still, it's very easy to smirk when he turns to them, playing _pool_ in his place, like they're old friends, like they have any right, and says:

"So, Chris, how do you think your daughter would feel if she knew you were fucking her boyfriends twink of a _brother_ , hmm?"

"She'd be _extremely_ grossed out," Stiles answers, lining up the stick, closing one eye to better his aim and sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth a little with determination. The ball hops right off the table when he hits it, and he curses as he moves back, Chris looking incredibly smug as he steps forward. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, old man. I'm still a better shot than you."

Chris hums, but doesn't respond.

Neither of them seem particularly perturbed by his jibe, which isn't what he was expecting. Normally _one_ of them would've risen to the bait, Chris, he'd thought, maybe, Stiles he was _sure_ would...

To be honest, none of this is what he'd been expecting.

" _You_ , the clumsiest person I've ever laid eyes on, are a better shot than an _Argent_?" The disbelief is enormous here.

Stiles shrugs, "My dad's the sheriff."

"And what does the _sheriff_ think of your torrid little affair."

Stiles snorts, " _Torrid_."

Chris pauses for a moment to give Stiles a speculative look, "D'you think your dad even knows?"

"He's a good cop," Stiles shrugs. "I've been living with you for a little less than a year, I show up to school with hickeys and, besides you, I don't really socialize. If he hasn't put it together by now, it's because he doesn't _want_ to."

Chris inclines his head with a little, "Huh," and proceeds to strike a cue ball that has two others rolling, gentle as can be, into their respective pockets without even looking. Stiles gawps at him.

"You- oh my god, _showoff_!"

Chris just smirks.

"As much as I'm enjoying the show," Peter interrupts, frustrated that no feathers seem to be rufflable at the moment, "why on earth are you two here? Has your Alpha gotten tired of your sickening puppy love? Or is he just looking for another Beta, because I've got news for him," Peter flashes red eyes at both of them, "I'm not for sale."

Chris frowns, turns to Stiles, "Is that going to be a problem?"

"No," Stiles says, cocking his head to the side as his eyes pierce Peter, as if he were inspecting some rare specimen. Peter has never been this _unsettled_ in his life, and he's ten seconds away from ripping them both apart out of sheer frustration and, perhaps, a modicum of boredom. "It's actually better."

The boy walks up to him, pats him on the shoulder and grins, "So, _Alpha_ ," Peter shivers involuntarily as a Pack-bond, windswept and wild slips into place, Stiles' eyes flashing a bright lavender, "how do you feel about time travel?"

Chris, with a fondly exasperated sigh, asks, "Is it better because it'll make it easier for us to be Pack?"

"Yep."

"I'm not gonna like this am I?"

"Nope."

Chris groans, rolls his eyes, walks up to Peter with a determined scowl, takes the werewolf's hand in his and places it on the side of his neck, then, " _Alpha_."

His Pack-bond isn't as heavy, though it's just as _strong_. Oak and serpentine, but human just the same.

"Pack," Peter says incredulously, then, when his brain catches up, "... Time travel?"

* * *

_ ♘ACT TWO♘ _

* * *

Eliza watches her granddaughter with a delighted eye as she giggles, dimples on her cheeks like little angel kisses. There's jam all over the wall, her dress, her hands and the surrounding carpet, of course, but that's no matter.

"You made an atrocious mess, didn't you, dear?"

Allison throws her head back and laughs with glee, "It's not a _mess_ , gramma! I's a _garden_! Strawberry garden!"

"And your parents will _love_ it, I'm sure," she says airily. She knows her son will probably think it's charming, he'd forgive his little girl anything, it's also just as likely his wife will make him clean it up, and question where on earth she gets it from, and who the hell his mother thinks she is, all of which he will endure with an eye roll and an exasperated smile.

She doesn't know how on earth Chris managed to snag such a vicious wife, one who has already made attempts on her life and her station, her ambition far greater than any love she might bear for her family. While Chris, her only son, most empathetic of her children, may have grown up to be cold and distant due to the life, by far one of the best soldiers the Argents have ever seen, even if _compassion_ is still sometimes considered a weakness- he isn't ambitious, and he's by no means cruel. She just doesn't understand how the two ended up together, she doesn't even understand how they _work_ together.

She's just about to tell Allison that maybe cleaning up so they can play in a _real_ garden would be a good idea when a knock resounds on the door. While she's loathe to leave the little girl alone for a second more- having her back turned for a minute is what got them to where they are in the first place- she doesn't think anyone would be knocking at her door at this hour unless it was important, her family all have the key, as do most of the Argent clan, but other hunters, other 'weres, even, who need help in a supernatural crisis all know that this is the place to go.

"No rest for the wicked, dear," she tells little Ally, and the girl nods sagely. Eliza smiles at her, "Do you promise to be good for gramma while she gets the door?"

Allison smiles in a way that completely and utterly betrays her cheery, "I promise!" And Eliza resigns herself to more messes as she goes to answer the door.

A teenaged looking boy stands on her doorstep, jaw length russet hair, sunlit-mahogany eyes, milk skin covered in moles, wearing a grey shirt under a red hoodie, tight black pants, military looking boots. He's svelte, muscular in a way that tells of agility and speed rather than strength and force, he's twitchy, has knives strapped on his person and a gun hidden somewhere easy to reach but hard to see, even without the bags under his eyes it'd be easy to tell how exhausted he is. He looks haunted, chased, which is no less than what she was expecting, but disconcerting to see in one so young, a little bit younger than her Kate, she thinks.

"Hello," she says, and the boy offers her a blatantly disarming smile that _instantly_ has her suspicious.

"Yo, my name's Stiles- I know your son? Chris, Christopher Argent? I'm supposed to meet up with him here, actually, you mind if I come in?"

" _You_ know _my_ son?" She asks, very disbelieving, because her son, as far as she knows, is trying very, very hard, fighting with his wife about it every goddamned day, to _get out_ of the life, for his daughter's sake. And this boy looks about as _in_ the life as one could possibly get. But then, the strangest thing happens, Allison comes up behind her asking:

"Gramma? Who i'sit?"

And the boy's face _melts_ , "Awwww," he coos, "Ally! You're just the cutest little thing, aren't you!"

Allison blushes brightly, "Umm, hi?"

"Hello, there. My name is Stiles, I know your daddy, he talks about you _all_ the time, did you know that? He loves you the bestest out of everyone in the whole world! And why wouldn't he? Look at you, those pinchable cheeks!" And all of her doubt flies out the window. Allison is one of the Argents better-kept secrets, because Chris has been _adamant_ about that, if the boy knows of her Chris must trust him immensely.

As soon as she lets him in, he wastes no time getting acquainted with the little girl, chasing after her, paying no mind to the sticky jam he gets all over himself when he picks her up, how much gets in his hair when Allison insists she _has_ to braid it.

"How come he never told me about you?" Eliza asks, just the slightest bit incensed, but her ire is tempered immensely by the horrors her granddaughter is putting his hair through. He winces as the girl in his arms tugs a little too hard and Allison smiles sympathetically, and it seems Stiles is as prey to her charms as her father, because he immediately forgives her.

"We met under... complicated circumstances. Well, actually, everything about us is complicated, but, to be fair, we're both complicated people. Hey, I wonder who's more complicated- hey, Ally, what d'you think? Is daddy more complicated than me?"

Allison gives him a _look_ , "I only just _met_ you! How am I supposed to know?"

"Well, I don't know! You're intuitive, probably-"

"I'm not _intuitive_ ," she says, testing the word on her tongue, "I'm _five_!"

"Alright, alright, alright, I see how it is, you don't think I'm worthy of your beautiful brain," he makes a very melodramatically hurt face, fakes a sniff. "I understand, I understand. Well, don't go looking at me when you want someone to ask intelligent questions, I'll remember this to my grave, you _obviously_ don't want to show me how _clever_ you are, oh, what a poor pitiful soul I must be-"

"Stop, stop, stop!" Allison says, exasperated, but her eyes are glowing with warmth and confident pride, "Fine! It's _you_ , you're _way_ more complicated than daddy, and we've only been friends for _five minutes_!"

"It's _me_ ," he breathes in absolute and utter shock.

"Hands _down_ ," Allison says as solemnly as a cute little girl with dimples covered in jam and braiding one's hair while being held up in their arms can muster.

Eliza, shaking with silent laughter by the end of it, wipes tears of mirth from her eyes and decides right then and there that she _loves_ her son's friend. She's still a little upset that he didn't _tell_ her about him, but the boy is just _amazing_ , and, she can tell, Allison is already just as endeared.

* * *

About an hour later, after Stiles has cleaned himself, and, obligingly, the walls and floors of all evidence of strawberry jam, and Eliza has washed and changed Allison, there's _another_ knock on the door.

Answering it, this time, brings her face to face with a _Hale_.

"Your house was incredibly hard to find, Mrs. Argent," the young man says with a cold, detached sort of smile. "Thank _goodness_ I had directions." _That_ was obviously sarcastic, and, from somewhere deeper inside the house, Stiles calls:

"You were being an asssssss-cidic person, who did not _deserve_ directions!"

Dark blue eyes roll and the 'were sighs, "May I come in?"

"Why?" Eliza demands, "What business do you have in my house?"

The cold smile grows, gains teeth and ferocity, "I have business with your _son_."

She opens her mouth to bite out something or other but is stayed when Stiles comes up right behind her, Allison half asleep on his hip, "Oh, shove it with the pretentious crap, Peter. You're a werewolf, she's a hunter, couldn't you have just lurked in some dark alley somewhere while you waited, or something? You had to have known you wouldn't get a warm welcome _here_."

Peter sighs, and actually seems a little put out when he says, "Which is why I kept suggesting _here_ not be our meeting place, but you two love-birds _insisted_."

"Yeah, yeah, whine all you want, Alpha, we both warned you this would happen, and I'm _also_ pretty sure we told you to _wait_ for us at the Hale house."

Peter frowns, "Talia was very... unhappy, about my status change, I figured it would be better to keep out of her warpath for the moment."

Stiles snorts, "Of course you did."

"Ex _cuse_ me," Eliza cuts in, Allison apparently out for the count in Stiles' arms, now, all of the talk lulling her to sleep, or a false sense of security, considering, "you mean to tell me you're an _Alpha_?"

"It was a recent development," Peter tells her, and then his eyes land, unnervingly, on Allison. "How trusting," he muses, "to fall asleep around a complete stranger."

"One who would never, ever, ever harm a pretty little hair on her adorable little head," Stiles says, or, commands, rather, eyebrows raised in something akin to challenge, and the older man huffs.

"Of course not, she's _Pack_." His eyes flash red as if to underline the fact, and Eliza gapes.

"In what universe is my _granddaughter_ your _Pack_?"

Stiles groans and looks to the sky for some sort of saving grace, or possibly patience, perhaps even answers. None come.

"This is why," the boy says, "this is why lurking would've been the better choice for you. Swear to god, I'm gonna get a headache."

Their conversation is unceremoniously interrupted when an out of breath Chris _runs_ up the walkway, shoving past Peter and Eliza both, _straight_ for his daughter.

"Allison," he breathes, the wild look in his eyes seeming to calm, and Stiles smiles softly at him before gently depositing the sleeping girl into his arms. "My Allison."

Stiles pats the man on the back and makes a comforting noise in the back of his throat before saying, quiet and tender, "Let's go sit down, huh, old man? You look like you're about to fall over."

Chris nods, eyes never leaving Allison's cherubic face as he's herded toward the couch by the younger male.

"Oh, and would you mind telling your mom to let Peter in? She's kinda freakin' out."

Chris drags awe-struck eyes from his daughter and says in a mostly wrecked voice, "Yeah, let 'im in, mom. He's good."

"Well," Stiles demurs, "for the relative term of _good_."

"Haha," Peter mocks sardonically, easily sauntering past her and depositing himself with all the grace of a predator on Chris' other side, a gentling hand running familiarly down Chris' back, "you're not exactly _helping_ , saying things like that."

Stiles, very maturely, sticks his tongue out at the 'were and curls into Chris' side, Allison's little feet in his lap, his head on her son's shoulder, going loose and pliant with a sigh, "Now, if you'll excuse me, magic's a bi-i-ill? A bill on the system, so Imma sleep, 'cause, you know," he rotates his wrist in a generalizing motion, " _tired_."

Chris accepts the boy's weight at his side with the ease of practice, and brushes dark chocolate curls away from his little girl's pristine face as tears begin to well in his eyes.

"Don't cry, Christopher," Peter murmurs, still petting his back soothingly, "we _won_ this round."

Chris huffs a world-weary laugh, a laugh she's never heard before, an expression she's never seen, "Will we win the next one?"

"Only time will tell."

Stiles, voice slurred with sleep, reaches around Chris to slap Peter upside the head, and tells him, "You are _not_ as funny as you think you are."

Eliza, far more than a _little_ confused, finally gets around her frozen dumbfounded shock enough to ask, "What. The _Hell_. Is going on?"

Chris sniffs, doesn't look away from his daughter, "It's complicated mom, I, I'll tell you, okay? Just, just give me a minute."

" _Fine_ ," she concedes, hands on her hips, "just answer me _one_ thing. Are you a part of a _werewolf_ Pack?"

Chris blinks, slowly drags his sight away from his daughter once more, and says, like a benediction, "Nous protégèons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes."

Sleepily, but ardently, Stiles repeats him, then Peter, with less weight to his words, but just as much faith.

"This is my Pack," her son tells her, stone in his eyes, steel in his voice, a wolf by his side, a boy by his other, and his little girl curled protectively in his arms, "and I will protect them, and _anyone_ in need of it, with my life. I'm never going to hunt again."

Peter huffs, shakes his head, smiles a grim sort of smile, "She would've been proud of you."

Chris looks down at Allison, meets Peter's eyes dead on and says, "She _will_ be."

Eliza is floored, but... warmth floods her, whether it's at the sentiment, or the way those four together just scream _family_ , or, or something _else_ , she honestly has no idea, and while she's still confused, still just the slightest bit upset, she decides to bustle herself into the kitchen to make some tea, something to eat, just to have something to _do_ while she mulls all this over.

_Nous protégèons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes_

We protect those who cannot protect themselves.

And then, oddly bereft of any sense of normalcy, she wonders where her daughter-in-law is.

* * *

"Nnggghhh," is Stiles' response when the world gets too loud to be conducive to sleep any longer. There's a shrill voice ranting, trying and failing to be quiet, and warmth radiating from his side that shifts as a gravelly voice responds. "Shut up, old man. Sleep." Does no one understand that time travel is exhausting? Why aren't they as exhausted as he is? It isn't even fair.

The shrill voice hitches up two notches and Stiles cracks open his eye to see a young Victoria, fiery hair around her shoulders just as red as her rage-filled face. "What the hell is this about a werewolf Pack?! A _divorce_?! Where the hell is this even coming from? One minute you were fine, and then you blinked and you were running, _running_ Chris! Has it occurred to you that maybe they- they infected you with something? Cast a _spell_ on you? This isn't normal, you aren't _acting_ normal!"

Chris is gritting his teeth, the little girl in his arms beginning to stir, and, honestly, Stiles doesn't want Allison to see her parents fighting, though he knows Chris doesn't want to be apart from her for the whole world right now.

"Babe," he says, blinking away sleep and still a little muzzy. "Babe, lemme take Ally, you don't want her to wake up to this."

"Babe?!" Victoria hisses, outraged, and Stiles rolls his eyes as he extracts himself from his lover's side and the comfy _comfy_ couch, batting at Chris until he finally relents and allows Stiles to gather the still mostly-sleeping girl in his arms. As he walks past them he toe-checks Peter's ankle.

"C'mon, Alpha, you're comin' with me."

"What?" Peter says, pouting as he turns away from the marital dispute, "But it's just getting interesting."

Stiles toe-checks his ankle more insistently, grabbing at his arm to haul him off the couch, which is a little hard to do when you've got a heavy-ass five-year-old cradled against your chest, but he manages. "You only think that because you're not right in the head, you know. Up! Up! I'm tired, I need a spot-checker in case Ally wakes up, c'mon, swear to god-"

"Oh, hush, I'm coming," Peter says, put-out and resigned, as he stands Victoria half-screams something about leaving their child alone with a werewolf, but is too involved in yelling at Chris to actually do anything about it.

Stiles yawns so wide his jaw cracks as they ascend the stairs, "Kids, time travel, psycho-harpies. I'm only seventeen, man, how is this my life?"

"Well. I think that would mostly be my fault actually."

"Yes," Stiles says, patting the older man's shoulder sympathetically, "yes, it would be."

Peter snorts, and shakes his head. Stiles isn't entirely sure what's funny, maybe it's that Stiles is comforting Peter when it should be the other way around, but he's not firing on all his cylinders right now, all he knows is that guilt sucks, and Peter's a lot less insane than he used to be, he deserves a shoulder pat or two. He came a long way.

* * *

Chris sighs as Victoria storms out of the house, and promises himself to get a good lawyer, in the _morning_ , because he's _tired_.

He winces when the door slams shut so hard it reverberates through the windows, exhales slowly to release the tension, levers himself from the goddamned couch in search of his lover, his daughter, and his Alpha. He has no idea where his mom went, but she left at some point before Victoria got there. He'll have to thank her, for everything, and hope that she doesn't ask for a too detailed explanation beyond the bullshit one he'll be giving her, because they'd _all_ decided that magical time travel spells wasn't information they could divulge to the matriarch of the Argent Clan.

He won't lie to her beyond that, though, his Code will forever be Allison's, he can't be a hunter anymore, not the way he used to be, not with the killing and the bias and the _hate_. He's done with it all. He wants to be a _good man_ , a better father.

Part of him hopes she'll understand, she was always better at inter-relations, better at understanding that not all wolves are inherently evil- he has to admit that things went a little crazy when she died, and he's always wondered at the suspicious circumstances, more recently considered his own father as a suspect, being leader regent in her wake alongside his wife until Kate or Allison came more into their own. He'll be able to find out now, he supposes, though there is every chance she'll disown him for this.

Honestly, he doesn't really care, which surprises him a little, but settles something deep within his soul. He has a Pack, a family, and the Argents, with their manipulations and torture and cruelty, mean little to him, after everything.

He finds them in his and Victoria's bedroom, Stiles curled around Allison on the bed, Peter curled around Stiles, and the image makes his heart swell. Because this, _this_ is what Pack feels like. He'd never understood it before, part of him hadn't been _willing_ to. He knows, without a doubt, that Peter, for all his arrogance and assholery, will take care of them, because he's their _Alpha_ , it's an inherent need, and Stiles has already proven that he'll literally go to the ends of the earth to keep his loved ones safe and sane, his own safety and sanity be damned. He knows, too, that he will do whatever he needs to do to keep them all, alive, happy, _loved_.

He manages a small smile as he climbs into the bed on the other side of Allison, his arm winding past her to tangle with Stiles, Peter grumbling and shifting until all four of them are connected in at least one way, and Chris' smile grows as he lets sleep take him.

Whatever happens in the morning, Peter was right.

They _won_ this round.

* * *

Talia hears Peter, along with three others, long before she sees him, and stomps outside. She knows they'll figure this out, of course they will, they're family, and it's not _unheard of_ for Packs to be host to two Alphas, it's just _incredibly_ rare. Even so, she maintains the right to be severely displeased with her brother, especially when he ran off the moment his eyes flashed red in her presence.

She still doesn't even know how it _happened_. And she does _not_ like being left out of the loop, especially not when it comes to her Pack.

A black SUV pulls up to her house, an _Argent_ SUV, and for a moment, despite the fact that Peter seems to be the one driving it, she's well and truly worried that the hunters have _done_ something. And then a door swings open and a little girl with dark curls and a white dress runs out of the car, laughing boisterously, chased by a very young man who looks lanky and pale and who, eyes flashing lavender, sprouts _wings_ , all black feathers and _flight_. The girl screams with delight as the boy glides through the air, sweeps her up in his arms, and spirits her away into the sky.

"Be careful!" A man she instantly recognizes as the Argent matriarchs son calls after them, apparently completely and utterly... _okay_ with a shifter in his presence, comfortable, even.

"I'm always careful, old man!" The winged boy calls back, doing spirals in the air that don't at all reassure her of the statement, but Chris just shakes his head with a fond smile, closing the car door behind him.

"That boy will never cease to amaze me," Peter murmurs in almost-awe as he steps out of the car himself, tossing the keys at Chris, who grins and says, "You officially owe me twenty bucks."

"It was a fool's bet," Peter all but sulks, handing over the money, "your daughter was always an adaptable girl, I should've known that she'd take werewolves and were- whatever Stiles is, in stride."

"Werecrow, or raven, I think," Chris muses, walking in step with Peter toward the house, "considering his wings."

"Anything's better than a fox," Peter says with a grim sort of finality, and Chris grunts in agreement.

Talia, so very confused, and not at all comfortable with an Argent this close to her home, feels perfectly reasonable when she says, with far more growl and bite than usual, "Peter, would you care to tell me what on _earth_ is going on?"

* * *

It's still running through her head, the explanation they gave her, for Peter being an Alpha, for Chris Argent's sudden and complete change of loyalty, for the small Pack before her, playing companionably in her backyard.

They told her it was up to her whether or not she told the rest of the Pack, and it was up to her whether or not she accepted them into her ranks after they've done what they need to do. None of them have any real attachments to Beacon Hills, hell, none of them really have any attachments to this _time_. Only to each other. It's obvious to see, when you look at them, even if she didn't know the truth...

Peter watches over them, sometimes with feigned disinterest, sometimes with something heavy, murderous, and _ancient_ , and, occasionally, with resignation to their collective antics, all that pulled taut with an overbearingly protective thread. Chris is keyed into Allison, and Stiles is keyed into all of them, but he pays most attention to Chris, and the two of them, they act like they're holding each other together, soothing frayed seams with every word, look, and touch. There's something in Peter's eyes, too, sometimes, like a distant, complicated yearning, but he hides it quickly, always stowing it away behind a sarcastic mask and a retreating step.

And they all dote on Allison almost like an afterthought, like they can't do any _less_ for her, and she supposes she understands, given the circumstances.

The point is, they've only really been Pack for a few months and they act like they were _born_ with these Pack-bonds simmering in their bones, in their souls. Which might have to do with desperation, or, much more likely in her opinion, how much they _love_ each other. It's in their scent and their body language and their smiles, haunted as they may be.

"Will it be dangerous," she'd asked them, after they told her everything, "what you're going to do?"

Chris had spared Peter a side-long glance and smiled, a tired, aching, long-survived sort of thing, "Our _lives_ are dangerous, Talia." He'd said, like that was answer enough.

And, in a way, it was.

"What's going on with Uncle Peter?" Laura asks, coming up behind her, taking in the sight of them, Stiles wrapped around Peter's back, laughing, Allison and Chris trying to knock him off while Peter fends them away and tosses verbal barbs that they all ignore with ease. His lips keep twitching up like he wants to smile but he's unsure of that expression on his face, and her heart breaks just a little.

"Too much," she replies, wanting nothing more than to wrap the little family in her backyard up with cotton blankets and hide them away from all the evils of this godforsaken world.

* * *

Ennis wasn't necessarily a cruel guy, and Derek wasn't necessarily an idiot.

But in this moment, the Alpha was being unwittingly cruel, and Derek, cowardly and in love and simply wanting to _be with her_ , was being a bit of an idiot.

Chris and Allison were back at his mother's, since tomorrow they'd be dealing with a whole other problem, and, hopefully, considering the fact that the woman hadn't disowned anyone or flown into a fit of rage or kept Stiles and Peter from ever again reentering her house, they could get her on board.

But, for now, there was an Alpha after a girl on the order of a boy who didn't, really should've, but _didn't_ know any better. And tomorrow's problems were better left for tomorrow.

Stiles sees Paige jump at the unexpected noise he makes when he trips over, well, fucking _nothing_ , because wings and training do not a klutz unmake, apparently.

"Derek?" She calls out through the dark hall, voice echoing against the lockers.

"No, nope," Stiles hastens to reassure, "but I _am_ a friend of his." He clambers up to her with, thankfully, a minimum amount of flailing, "And he did a stupid, stupid thing, because he thinks you don't know what he is, but you're a clever girl, right?"

She's giving him a stupified disbelieving look that he can totally understand and empathize with, but doesn't have time for. A loud bang sounds behind them, two animal sounds, primal and rage and fight, following after it.

"Right. Which means you hopefully _won't_ be too surprised by the-" her eyes widen, Peter and Ennis careen down the stairs nearly ripping each other to shreds- "... werewolves. Paige." Her doe eyes are glued to the violent scene playing out before them. Stiles shakes her a little, "Paige, you with me? 'Cause I'm gonna need you to-" Ennis pins Peter, just long enough to get away from him, long enough to flash red eyes and lock onto Paige's small form- "yeah." Ennis growls out of his nostrils like a raging fucking _bull_ and Stiles is instantly so very _far_ from okay with a _hall_ being the only thing standing between them and the hulking wolf dude. He grabs Paige's arm.

" _Run!_ "

He thanks god for small mercies when she actually listens, and ignores her shocked shriek when wings sprout out of his back, because the light at the end of this proverbial tunnel is a window, and all he needs to do is get to it and they're home free.

The howl that follows them into the night sky is nothing short of _enraged_.

* * *

Eliza is startled from her knitting when her door bursts open, a very wind-swept Stiles lugging a very bloodied and battered Peter through, kicking the door shut behind them, muttering curses all the way to the couch, where he promptly tosses the man before collapsing with a groan beside him. Peter coughs up a little blood, and Stiles pats him on the back until he's settled into breathing mostly normally again.

Stiles smirks at her, and says breathlessly, "You should see the _other_ guy."

Peter rolls his eyes, some of his injuries already sluggishly healing, "Shut up, Stiles."

"What?" The boy asks innocently, "We totally took down the bad guys and saved the innocents-"

"Yes, yes, and that's all well and good, but she's a _hunter_."

"Who's sitting in a rocking chair _knitting_! Unless those knitting needles are coated in wolfsbane, I highly doubt telling her that we beat the Alpha who beat you up- and who was planning on Biting someone without their consent had we not stopped him- _worse_ is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

"And you'd be right," she says, amused. Her knitting needles _were_ coated in wolfsbane, and she was a little irritated that blood was getting on her upholstery, but they'd gotten that god-forsaken wench out of her house, and, somehow, being in a Pack seemed to be _good_ for Chris; he seemed better with them, kinder, softer, more centered. His demons seemed bigger, too, but he had more people, people he _trusted_ to help him deal with them. She wasn't going to take that away from him, _or_ Allison.

Besides, from what Stiles had said, whatever violence they committed tonight was well within the rights of the hunters Code. It made an odd sense of pride swell in her chest, and to see the sweet relief, triumph, and victory plain on both Stiles and Peter's faces, well.

"If anything," she decides, "I think I want to make you boys some cookies."

Stiles makes a surprised, extremely excited sound in the back of his throat. Peter narrows his eyes at her suspiciously, but grunts in acceptance after Stiles swats him on his uninjured arm a few times.

"Mind you, you _will_ be cleaning up after yourselves. If there's a bloodstain in my couch tomorrow, there'll be hell to pay."

"Yes, ma'am!" Stiles agrees cheerfully, and beams at Peter with a sparkle in his deep brown eyes. The werewolf blinks at him for a moment before huffing and, tenderly, smiling back.

* * *

Paige, a little shaken, and a lot determined, knocks on the door to the Hale house.

She knows about werewolves, she'd always had an _inkling_ , but now? Now she has proof. And she's going to have a nice, long discussion with Talia about it, just like Stiles told her to, she's also going to tell Derek she can be in a committed relationship with him, even while retaining her complete and total humanity- right after she knocks him upside the head for trying to take that away without _asking_ first.

Typical jock.

She remembers, only hours ago, how Stiles set her gently down in the Preserve, a short walk away from this house, with a sad smile, and told her she would not survive the Bite, even if she _did_ want it (which she _didn't_ ). He'd gently gone through everything that had happened, in Derek's head, that brought him to this decision, and he'd begged her to have some mercy on the other boy. It was funny, but her savior, despite looking just as young as she, seemed beyond her years in ways she couldn't comprehend, didn't even really want to.

"Tell Talia everything that happened," he'd said, "she'll help you and you'll be able to go from there, with Derek, with the Hales, with-" something in his eyes, some indecipherable emotion- "your _life_."

"But- what about those werewolves? The one that was after _me_? Ennis?"

He looked every bit the soldier, one who'd witnessed war and was about to step right back onto that battlefield, it shone in his eyes, death and bravery, dancing in amber-light, "We'll take care of them. You're safe, now, I promise." He'd said.

She could do nothing but believe him.

* * *

Eliza didn't believe them, of course she didn't, but they held her attention and good graces enough that she _followed_ at least, and, really, that was all they needed, to show her indisputable _proof_. Her husband was a waffling bastard, who was going to try to make what _could've_ been a truce some arbitrary foothold for _war_ , or something close enough to it, anyway- an excuse, to burn a whole family alive.

So, Chris leads her around back, all stealth and listening in, Stiles hangs high in the rafters, waiting with magic tight and present underneath his skin, prepared to dissipate the gas almost as soon as it's introduced into the air.

He waits, until Deucalion is saying, horrified, "Your own people?"

"They wanted peace, too," Gerard says, Stiles twists his magic around the gas, "look what you did to them."

And that's enough, Stiles shifts the molecules, the air clears just as he jumps down from the rafters, gun in hand, aimed at the old man's head, half a second later Chris has his raised arm, bat prepared to strike down an unsuspecting hunter, in a tight, unrelenting grip, and Eliza, fury etched in her face, is checking on the man Gerard harmed with sympathetic, motherly coos, as she glares grimly at her extremely surprised husband.

"Believe us now?" Stiles asks, cocking his gun when Gerard shifts minutely, his surprise quickly morphing into aggression.

"Yes," Eliza says solemnly.

"Can I shoot him?"

Chris huffs, injects his father with horse tranquilizer before he has the chance to do much else, and eases him down, tossing the brutal weapon recklessly to the side.

" _No_ , Stiles. I know you hate him-" "He tortured me!" "- but there are _rules_ we have to follow. And, technically, what he did or didn't do to you happened..." "In another life," Stiles concedes, pouting as he uncocks his gun, puts it in safety, returns it to its holster and turns to look a very young, sane Deucalion in the eyes.

The dissonance between this man and the psychopathic counterpart he knew makes his stomach roil, and he's surprised his voice manages even when he says, "Gerard is _not_ the majority, we want peace, too."

"And I'm sorry," Eliza offers, quiet and sincere, "that it took _this_ to realize what Gerard had planned, I swear I didn't know, none of my Clan did, except... except my son. He's the only reason-" she cuts off, apparently too choked up by the carnage Gerard could've wrought had they not stopped him to continue. "And even then," she says, cradling a bleeding, whimpering hunter to her chest, and looking up at Chris with glassy eyes, "I almost didn't believe him."

Chris smiles down at her faintly, goes on bended knee to help her tend to the wounded, the other two hunters, disgust a scorching thing in their eyes, moving to drag Gerard away to- Stiles isn't entirely sure, he checked out after about two sentences of Chris trying to explain hunter politics, but he knows that _this_ time, the old goat won't get out of it. There's even the possibility of a death sentence, and even without it, Eliza will most likely divorce him when all's said and done. Whatever power he's had, it's about to be destroyed with what amounts to a sledgehammer.

"They still want a treaty," Stiles tells Deucalion softly, "but it may take time to clean up the mess Gerard caused."

Deucalion flashes a smile, "I'm pretty sure you just saved my life," he says. "And peace is all I've ever wanted. I am a patient man, I can wait."

_Not your life, just your eyes._

Stiles is a little surprised no one's commented on his magic, yet. It was a small act, but, really, he'd had a story planned and everything, in case anyone asked.

With a weary sigh, he nods, prays that this will be enough, that the _Alpha Pack_ will never happen in this timeline, that, even though they still have plans for Gerard and Kate, _this_ is enough for Deucalion, Ennis, and Kali.

The twins are another story, although, speaking of.

"Hey, totally random, let's say there's a Pack out there with twins in it who they're terribly horrible and abusive to. And I maybe know where this Pack is, how would you feel about helping me get them out? And maybe providing them with a better environment once they _are_ out?"

Deucalion raises his eyebrows, "You know of this, and yet you haven't killed the whole Pack already?"

Stiles flashes his eyes, "My boyfriend's the Hunter," he grins, "and, besides," a shrug, "we haven't had the time."

Deucalion's eyes widen, flick from Stiles to Chris, dawning comprehension, and an easy, proud sort of smile. "I can see why you would want this treaty to happen just as badly as I." He sighs, looks back at the few members of his Pack he brought with him, all trying (and failing) to look like they aren't listening in. "So long as you can promise there will be no unnecessary bloodshed, and if these twins you speak of are truly in need, I will offer assistance."

"No unnecessary bloodshed," Stiles promises, "and they do."

As far as he knows, they're being treated as Omegas, being abused, and completely unable to control their unique power. Deucalion helped them once, when he was unstable and cruel, who's to say he won't be able to help them again, better, while he's sane and kind?

* * *

With Gerard carted off to some Hunters Judiciary system, the Alphas taken care of (Ennis got a stern talking to by one very pissed off Talia, Derek himself got a lecture, for that matter), and a plan well in motion for the twins, it was mostly a waiting game until Kate, having heard the terrible (not) news about her father, came to visit.

Victoria was stalling on the divorce papers, growling about custody and what not, Peter had asked multiple times if they were sure he couldn't just kill her, or take her memories, or, much more preferably, _kill her_. They've denied every request with indulgent (Stiles) and exasperated (Chris) smiles.

Considering Chris formerly lived with his mother, and Peter formerly lived with his Pack, and Stiles currently lives _nowhere_ , they take the small break they're afforded to scope out a nice apartment complex that's child-friendly, close to a park and a bookstore with open flooring and lots of windows. Moving in and shopping for their apartment turns out to be more fun, and more harrowing, than expected, with little Allison in tow. The budget, however, isn't something to worry over, since Peter's a freelance lawyer with _great_ connections, Chris is still in the weapon selling/ mercenary business, and Stiles recorded data before they left their original timeline so he could play in stocks and buy winning lottery and tickets and shit. Stiles still ends up getting a part-time job at the bookstore they live next to, out of pure boredom if nothing else.

Chris' mom visits, grateful and wary and morose and mischievous all at once. She likes the idea of them all together, despite the supernatural parts of it. Says they look like family, and Allison's as happy as she's ever seen her. Allison, who hasn't even once really asked after her mom.

Talia seems honestly happy that the four of them seem to be staying, she's had several meetings with Peter about being co-Alphas of Beacon Hills. She loves her little brother, she says, and doesn't want to lose him. Stiles believes her, and they're considering actually planting roots here, since they've found a nice little niche, anyway, and Allison has lived here her whole life (Stiles still has memories of an older Allison, when he'd first met her, being embittered, if only slightly, about having moved around so goddamn much).

Peter is still just their Alpha, not anything more, their friendship with each other, and Chris and Stiles' trust in him has grown exponentially.

But Stiles has noticed the quickly shuttered glances, the lingering touches, and the smell of _yearning_ all over the man.

So, he brings it up to Chris one day, when Peter and Ally are at the park and he's making them all dinner, his lover sitting at the dining table going over work emails.

"I love you," he tells him, and Chris looks up from his laptop with a distracted, beautiful sort of smile.

"I love you, too."

"Mmkay... How d'you feel about Peter?"

Chris shrugs, typing something in and clicking around before focusing his full attention on Stiles, "He's our Alpha. I trust him more today than I did yesterday, and I expect I'll feel the same way tomorrow. Why?"

Stiles bites his lip, stirs the pasta, and tries not to let the anxiety bubbling in his gut overwhelm him. "I like him," he says haltingly, "and he likes us... romantically, I think. And we're all fucked up and he's maybe the most fucked up, but I think having a Pack has helped him and he's-"

"You want to try... involving him?" Chris asks, a little dubious but not outright affronted or unaccepting. "In this," he gestures between them, "in- whatever we are?"

"Yeah. I think I do."

Chris raises an eyebrow at him, and Stiles juts his chin out, all proud dare. He can't help himself, it's a knee-jerk reaction with them at this point, Chris being disbelieving and Stiles being challenging despite his insecurities and worries. His lover huffs out a long breath, stands to pad over to him, press their foreheads together. This close, Stiles can see the crinkle around his eyes and the sparkle in blue irises that means he's smiling, even if he can't quite see the smile.

"Okay."

"Really, old man?" Stiles has to ask, exasperated and fond, cupping Chris' face in his hands to kiss away what is most probably a smirk, the ass. "I've been overthinking this for _weeks_ , and that's all you have to say? Just ' _okay_ '?"

Chris snorts, hands resting on his hips, and kisses him back, biting his bottom lip and soothing it with a rough tongue in some sort of admonition. "Can't say I haven't thought about it, myself," he murmurs softly, and Stiles raises his eyebrows. There's a definite twinkle in Chris' eyes when he says, "Something about those lost-puppy baby blues."

Stiles barks out a startled laugh, and Chris steps back, telling him not to burn the food before more seriously explaining, "I understand him a little better, now, and I like him, too. I think I could fall in love with him, without much fuss, and I'm pretty sure you could, too."

Stiles nods, because he's halfway there already, as far as he can tell.

"And now," Stiles sighs despondently, "I am going to drive myself half crazy trying to figure out how to bring up an impromptu polyamorous relationship with our Alpha."

Chris just laughs, they both know it's true.

"Don't worry," he says, "I'll help."

* * *

It's a two day road trip and a lot of fucking red tape- some of said red tape includes throwing down a metaphorical gauntlet, my Alpha vs your Alpha for custody of the Omega twins you're so obviously abusing- but they get Ethan and Aiden out safe, and Deucalion promises, with the help of his Emissary, to teach them how to control their gift, and to care for them _properly_.

"I still don't understand why they hugged me," Stiles actually sounds genuinely confused by the fact that the two little critters clung to his legs and thanked him profusely with snot-nosed faces, even though he was the one being most loud-mouthed about their situation, and had had his wings out the whole time, mantling them, fully prepared to raze the whole Pack if that's what it took just to get them safe.

Peter snorts, shakes his head and wraps an arm around the boy's shoulders, Stiles looks up at him with a slightly guarded, hopeful sort of gaze that Peter doesn't understand, so he ignores it and just says, "Let's go home."

Home to Chris and Allison, who are waiting for them, missing them.

Peter hadn't thought, after everything, he'd ever have anything like _home_ again, let alone Pack, family. Sometimes it terrifies him.

"Yeah," Stiles says, reaching up to lace their fingers together against his shoulder, "let's go home."

* * *

"So," Stiles says, about an hour after Allison's been put safely to bed, his lover standing next to him and their (hopefully) lover-to-be sitting and waiting him out patiently with bemused amusement. "Polyamory," he finally blurts, and winces at his own lack of brain-to-mouth filter. Chris snorts, Peter's eyes widen marginally before he can help himself, and then he schools his face into blankness. "Is a thing... That we maybe want to try... with you?"

"We want to date you," Chris summarizes, a little blithe, a little sweet-soft, "both of us. Because, according to Stiles, we're all fucked up, why not be fucked up together? Besides, we all like each other, we're all mostly in love with each other, and we're all raising a child. Honestly, the three of us are practically married."

"A healthier marriage than you ever had with psycho-harpy, old man," Stiles snipes, because other than steadily rising eyebrows Peter hasn't reacted, and the nerves are getting to him, if he doesn't talk he'll chew his fingers off, he's sure.

Chris actually considers this, then, bluntly, "Yes."

Peter snorts despite himself, and the tension Stiles had felt increasing, eases.

"I have to admit," the 'were says, and his eyes have gone soft, ice melted to fluffy snow, "I wasn't expecting this." He smiles at them like starlight, "But I'm not opposed."

Stiles grins, fist pumps for good measure, and they both laugh at him, but Stiles doesn't really care. This is gonna be _awesome_ , he can tell, he feels it in his bones, in how warm his blood is and the way his heartbeat skips at the tinkle-song sounds of Chris and Peter's laughter tangling in the air.

* * *

Derek, sheepish and just a little petulant, knocked on the door to his Uncle's apartment. Paige had told him what had happened that day with Ennis, and who had saved her from a fate she didn't _want_ , and he'd known that he needed to talk it over with his Uncle, thank him, ask him to extend that thanks to the Stiles kid he always seemed to be hanging around. But... he'd been procrastinating. He'd used wanting to keep Paige safe as an excuse, in case Ennis decided not to back off, decided to use Derek's mistake against his girlfriend- but, apparently, he had another thing to thank his Uncle (and Chris, this time) for, because the hunter and the 'were had bullied Ennis, Kali, and Deucalion into a treaty that wouldn't allow for any sort of shenanigans, and were also going out and recruiting every Alpha in every stable Pack in California.

They were making a kingdom, a united front, to keep the bad things out and the humans safe and the supernaturals safe and any hunter who followed the Code would never have _any reason_ to invade the state again, and any hunter who _didn't_ follow the Code would answer to the _Argents_. Needless to say, it was a big move, politically, and a big deal. It was... kind of empowering, to be honest, and being a part of that, even a small part, was exciting.

Still. He'd been an idiot and an ass, and fessing up to that, apologizing, and thanking his _Uncle_ , in the same breath? It was going to be humiliating. But he'd put it off for as long as he could.

Time to face the music.

The door opens just as he's steeled himself, and he's faced with a sight he didn't expect to see.

"Who're you?" Asks a bright, dimpled, cherubic little face, framed with dark curls, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Ally!" He hears his Uncle call, "What did I tell you about letting an _adult_ answer the door?"

"But Mimi said the runes don't let in anyone dangerous!" The girl, Ally? Calls back with a pout.

"Yes, I did," responds a svelte looking guy as he rounds the corner, maybe his age, maybe a little older, brown hair just past his shoulders, a pink plastic headband keeping it out of his amberine eyes, which sparkle with the same flavor of mischief as the little girls' does. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't still be careful, chickadee."

Ally rolls her eyes and the guy snorts, before offering a hand for Derek to shake, "Hello Derek," he says, pretty lips pulled into a smirk, "I'm Stiles."

Derek blinks in surprise, for _several_ reasons, not the least of which being how Stiles and Ally both are saturated in his Uncle's scent.

"Come in," Stiles says, picking up Ally with a grunt and then cooing at the girl who's rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue, but shifting to become more comfortable on his hip. The apartment looks... _nothing_ like he thought it would. It's homey, all earth tones mixed with vibrant velvet blues, everything sun-soaked and drenched in the smells of Pack and love and family.

Peter is, astoundingly, in the kitchen, cooking, and he doesn't acknowledge Derek's presence beyond raising an eyebrow at him. His eyes soften, brighten, curl with a vulnerable, tentative sort of warmth, when they light on Stiles, who leans up to kiss a smile onto Peter's lips, Ally giggling all the while like it's perfectly normal. Chris Argent, sitting in the dining room chair, half exhausted, blinking blearily ar his cup of coffee, gets a little girl dumped in his lap before Stiles is bending down to smack a kiss against _his_ mouth, too.

"Look who your daughter dragged in," Stiles murmurs, smiling, and prompting Chris to look over at Derek, who's shifting from foot to foot, uncomfortable and confused. Chris raises his eyebrow in almost an exact replica of Peter's expression.

"Hello, Derek," the older man says, obliging the child in his lap with fond exasperation as Stiles snatches up a coloring book and crayons from the coffee table to entertain her. "What brings you here?"

"I came to-" he grimaces, covers it with a scowl- "to talk to my Uncle. I was under the impression that he lives here."

"He does," Stiles chirps, "and so does Chris, and so does Allison, and so do I. We're Pack. We're family. You of all people should understand that."

Derek's still frowning, but he _does_ understand it, and the truth of the statement is very... _loud_ , everything about this apartment screams it. What he doesn't understand is how it works. Chris is a hunter, a _father_ , his daughter curious and brave, but still young, and largely unknown; Stiles is... about his age? But Derek can't tell, by scent _or_ action, if he's with Chris, or Peter; and, and he's never been _fond_ of Peter, who's always been an ass, so far as he can tell, yet here he is. Domestic, _smiling_.

It feels more than a little weird.

Then Peter is bringing the cooked food to the table and Allison, who's still caught up in her drawing, whines, "Papa! You're supposed to wait until I'm done!"

"No, I'm not," Peter says with an affectionate smile as he kisses her temple lightly and whisks away the coloring book and the crayons. "I'm sure your dragon can remain black and white until you're done with supper."

"And," Stiles murmurs, all syrup-honeyed tones, shooting a briefly apologetic look to Peter, "when he's all filled in, I can cast a spell on him," the boy does spirit fingers, "bring him to life. Would you like that?"

"Yes!" Allison squeals, before diving after her food with excited vigor.

"Hey, hey," Chris warns, disgruntled and gruff and still seemingly exhausted, " _chew_ , or you'll get sick."

"Okay, daddy," Allison replies easily, slowing down about a centimeter.

"Sit," Peter says, without even looking at him, "there's more than enough for you."

Which is how he got roped into dinner with his Uncle's very unconventional family. It doesn't escape his notice that Allison seems to think of all three of them as parental figures, that they all treat her as their own and with a certain kind of reverence he doesn't fully understand, that Peter seems to be involved with both Chris and Stiles _simultaneously_ , and that his Uncle is honestly happier than he's _ever_ seen him.

He doesn't even manage the 'thank you' he'd come to give before he's leaving with a tupperware of some of the most amazing lasagna he's ever eaten, a vague order from Stiles to come by and visit again, and a glass butterfly charm for Laura from Allison. He feels, somehow, like he's been steamrolled six ways to sunday, defeated and confused about nine more, and he already knows he's gonna have to return with more determination to actually _thank them_ , because his mom and Laura will both know that he didn't, and they'll both beat him up with a rolled up newspaper if he _doesn't_.

"My family," he tells no one in particular, "is so _strange_."

The heavenly lasagna in his hands agrees with him, he thinks.

* * *

"Ugh," Stiles says, at length. His head is in Peter's lap, and Allison, after an hour or so of ridiculous roughhousing after her first day back at school, is passed out sprawled across his stomach. "I think she's drooling on me. She's totally drooling on me. Old man!" He calls out to Chris, complaining, "your daughter is drooling on me!"

And Chris, who is all the way across the room doing some work thing or other, snorts, but otherwise ignores him, that is, until his phone chimes.

"Kate," the man says tersely, and it's what they've been waiting for, it's their cue to put their last pieces on the board, their check fucking mate.

Chris is up in a millisecond, and Stiles is already waking up Allison, lifting his head so that Peter can shift out from under him.

"'as goin' on?" She asks blearily, and he gives her a reassuring smile.

"Date night," he lies, "very last minute and very important. So I'm gonna take you to your Aunt Talia's, okay? We're flying."

Allison nods, and then, sleepily, allows Stiles to manhandle her into a piggyback position. He doesn't let his wings free until he's outside, and then he soars. Allison, far too used to this by now, sleeps through the whole flight, and drools on his shoulder.

* * *

"Covered in drool," Stiles hisses into Peter's ear as he touches down, before promptly kissing him on the cheek and following him inside the Argent house. Peter will never get over just how fast the boy flies.

"You smell like our daughter," and he revels in the fact that he gets to say things like that, he really does. Stiles offers him an easy-happy sort of smile, before turning to face the living room, and the three people that await them there, or, the two people who await them, and the one who will be utterly and completely surprised and discomfited by their presence.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

Especially since he _knows_ Eliza, now, and she, unlike most of her kin, not only follows the Code, but has made exceptions to it before due to her compassion and empathy and capacity to love the species she's meant to hunt. All those good things Chris and his daughter inherited from the Argent line they inherited from _her_. If she had more magic and a dash more selfless recklessness she'd remind him entirely too much of Stiles.

At any rate, he knows she will not be having with her daughter's fanaticism, as soon as it becomes apparent to her, which it does the moment Peter enters her line of sight.

She doesn't freak out, necessarily, but she does look mildly apoplectic, even more so when they tell her, and her mother, their news. This, honestly, wasn't _entirely_ part of their plan, but after they'd gotten together, and the very night the three of them had first made love, Stiles had suggested it, and Peter had laughed so hard he'd nearly cried, and Chris, smirking, had said it was as good an idea as any.

After all, they mostly wanted to prove Kate couldn't be trusted, and then, after, lay down all the proof they had because, as Peter was very, very _disgusted_ to learn, his Pack wasn't the first she'd burned.

"We're having a ceremony," Stiles chirps, "which I'm sure our lovely beau was already telling you."

"A ceremony?" Eliza asks, cocking an eyebrow, but there's a smile in her eyes, like she knows already what they're leading up to and approves, which just makes Stiles grin as he hooks an arm over Chris' shoulder.

"Werewolves," Peter says, blank and cool. Kate grits her teeth, "when courting our Mate, or Mate _s_ as the case may be, have a ceremony. For the beginning of the thing, it's symbolic."

"It's like a prelude to werewolf-y marriage, it's actually _super_ cool, I have all the books and a whole bunch of research, if you'd be interested, Lizzy."

Stiles and Eliza, needless to say, are on good terms.

She taught him how to knit.

The whole family has at least seven different magical poorly-knitted items, and even Derek, Talia, Laura, and Paige have been subject to his gifts, much to their amusement.

"That sounds absolutely _fantastic_ ," the Argent matriarch coos, and Stiles grins _wider_ if that's even possible, his eyes flashing a sharp violet, and Kate gasps, looking at her mother, utterly betrayed.

"I am going to be, eventually, Mated to two absolute _saps_ ," Chris sighs, as if he's anything less than completely delighted by the fact- Peter can scent his joy in the air as easily as he can scent Kate's fury, he's not fooling anyone.

"You _adore_ it," he purrs, coming up to Chris' other side and kissing him sound and sweet, smirking at Kate when he pulls away.

"Chris," she sounds about three paces from shrill, "what the hell are you _thinking_?! These are _monsters_! Are you- are you letting them near _Allison_? Jesus, big brother, just when I thought you couldn't be any more of a disappointment! Not only are you a _coward_ , but a traitor to your whole fucking _species_."

"Young lady!" Eliza is composed, her tone short and clipped and utterly disgusted. "My lord," she says, "I should've divorced that man the moment after I gave birth to you! What on _earth_ kind of _vitriol_ was _that_?"

"We hunt those who hunt us, mother."

"Yes, well, no one's hunted anyone! Peter and Stiles are some of the sweetest- oh, well, Peter's just a bit off of his rocker, but nevermind that- people I know, despite their species." The woman sighs, and shakes her head, "Perhaps I should take Chris' Code into more consideration," she murmurs thoughtfully, and Chris, before he can stop himself, is overtaken by a warm smile that makes Stiles' eyes gleam with affection and something deeper, _happier_. "It certainly doesn't leave as much room for _hatred_."

"And why _shouldn't_ I hate them?" Kate asks, serious and so goddamn sure of herself, "Filthy, disgusting mutts."

"You certainly weren't saying things like that when you dragged Connor Splakely to bed, were you?" Peter asks with a raised eyebrow, and Kate's whole face flushes a dark, angry red. "Or perhaps you were? I won't judge. I don't tend to kink shame unless those kinks involve arson, mass murder, and abuse. Which, ah, that all just fits you to a T, doesn't it?"

Eliza is very still, and very pale, and frowning with glass in her summer-sky eyes.

"What are you talking about, Peter?" She asks, voice colder than he's ever heard it.

"This, mom," Chris says, somber and sad and resigned, taking the files and the evidence and the _proof_ from Stiles' messenger bag and handing it to her. "He's talking about _this_."

As she looks it over, her complexion steadily turns grey, and Kate, looking over her shoulder, by contrast, returns to her normal pallor, sporting a vindictively pleased smile. When Eliza looks up from the pages to see her daughter's expression, she visibly flinches back.

"You can understand why," Chris says, slow and careful and quiet, "I won't be inviting her, don't you?"

Kate just hums, mocking, "What? Don't want me to turn the mutts who made you nothing more than their _rutting-bitch_ into ash, Chris? You scared of your baby sister? Huh? You're _pathetic_."

"Going by the Code," Stiles says calmly, inspecting his fingernails with a blank expression on his face, though his whole side is pressed solidly against Chris' by way of comfort, "we could kill you, you know."

"You wouldn't _dare_ ," Kate grins, and her eyes gleam with something like _madness_.

"Oh, my sweet baby girl," Eliza cries, soft and _pained_. "What have you _done_?"

"I have only done what _you've_ taught me, mother. I've hunted the vermin and _burned them out_ , cauterized the wound before it could even _bleed_ , let alone fester. Think of all the _people_ , humans, I've saved doing this."

"You're sick," Stiles says, and not in a demeaning or angry sort of way, but sympathetic, and just this side of kind, despite the indifferent edge to his voice. "And you need a whole bucket of help."

"I'd prefer it if we just _kill_ her," Peter chimes, earning himself a glare of varying black-death from everyone else in the room. He puts his hands up in surrender, "But I am _obviously_ outvoted."

Which is part of the reason this whole plan came about, really- Eliza was a part of their lives, now, and damn if he wasn't falling further in love with Chris by the day- both of whom, despite everything, couldn't help but loving their tragic family member. He supposes he understands, in a way, after all, Derek was like that, and Peter had taken full advantage. Stiles and Peter won't, however, allow Kate to do the same. They may be sparing her life, but they're not about to spare her freedom.

The compromise, of course, is _Eichen_.

And Eliza, after Kate passes out (Chris spiked her tea before they got there, clever man), and they explain their idea to her, is regretful, but resigned. At the very end of the day, after Kate has spent a very long time in the boot of Chris' is car and is then safely stowed away in the supernatural ward of the nut house- which is irony at it's finest- Eliza gives them all a warm, enveloping hug, and tells them to text her the place and the time of their ceremony, the only bright spot of her shit day was hearing that they'd all finally gotten their heads out of their asses and gotten together.

"What a terrifying woman," Peter says, slightly awed as she leaves them in her wake.

"Yeah," Stiles sounds wistful, "her husband and her daughter turned out to be bat-shit and she's handling it like a _boss_."

"Well," Chris shrugs, smiles at them, "that's my mom."

* * *

The ceremony was short and sweet and beautiful.

Honestly, it was more a party in the Hales' backyard, a tiny moment where the two Alphas accepted their relationship formally and offered gifts to the moon and the gods in the hopes that the courting was successful, and one day, when the three were Mated, the gods and the moon would accept them aside. Talia and her mate barbequed, Derek came up to them and thanked them for how they helped Paige, looking greatly relieved to get that off of his chest, before congratulating them on getting together.

Laura taught Allison how to make flower-crowns, which their little girl then forced on everyone she could, saving the ones made of baby's breath and yellow lilies for her parent-figures.

Talia and Eliza, surprisingly, became fast friends.

When the sun set and the moon rose they went running (or, in Stiles' case, _flying_ \- with Allison as passenger) through the Preserve, their howls and trills and whoops of excitement and joy echoing through the wood for all to hear.

There were still things to do, and trials to pass, and their lives, as always, would be _dangerous_ , but for now, they were _alive_ , and the happiness they shared coated the whole world, made it bright, made it dazzling.

"Hey Mimi?" Allison says, her smile just as big as his.

"Yes, darling?"

"I'm glad daddy found you."

Stiles smiles wider at that, nuzzles into her cheek to earn a giggling laugh.

"Me too, Ally, me too."

**Author's Note:**

> Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I'm not too overly happy with the ending, but I did my best, and, again, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> No Malia doesn't exist, ahhhhhh, I am a horrible author, I just can't figure out where to _put_ her most of the time. _Sighs_. I also have no idea how to write children, forgive my shortcomings.
> 
> Anyway, loooooovvvvveeeeeeeeee to everyone who reads this!
> 
> PS - Allison calls Stiles Mimi because he told her his real name, and it's her 'parent' nickname for him. Also, she didn't freak out about Victoria going away because... because I just _fail_ , lol- assume she's overly adaptable and go with it?


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